Managers' perceptions of meaningfulness in the future work

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Managers' perceptions of meaningfulness in the future work © Soila Lemmetty and Elina Riivari. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited Published version Lemmetty, Soila; Riivari, Elina Lemmetty, S., & Riivari, E. (2024). Managers' perceptions of meaningfulness in the future work. Journal of Advances in Management Research, Early online. https://doi.org/10.1108/jamr-092023-0281 2024 Managers’ perceptions of meaningfulness in the future work Soila Lemmetty School of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland, and Elina Riivari Open University of University of Jyv€ askyl€ a, Jyv€ askyl€ a, Finland Abstract Purpose –Meaningfulness at work means experience of work as important, satisfying and valuable. It is a key factor in promoting individual growth, strengthening the belief in one’s own abilities and supporting a sense of belonging and commitment to the organization. In this paper, we explore managers’ perceptions of meaningful work in the future, focusing on managers’ talk about meaningful work and its promotion in their organizations. Design/methodology/approach –The data for the study consists of 25 stories of future working life collected from Finnish managers in spring 2022, using the empathy-based method. Findings –From managers’ stories of future working life, we identified two overarching perception categories of meaningful work: (1) Perceptions of contexts underlining the experience of meaningfulness: evolving technologies, developing expertise and demands and change in working life values and (2) Perceptions of management practices determining meaningful work: leader-centered, distant and technical management practice versus participatory and interactive management practice. Originality/value –The research produces a new and detailed understanding of the ways in which managers talk about decreasing and increasing meaningfulness at work and management practices related to it. As the research is qualitative in nature and based on a small dataset, its results cannot be generalized. Instead, it strengthens and sharpens the previous understanding of meaningful work and the future of work. Keywords Meaningfulness, Meaningful work, Well-being, Leadership, Change, Working life Paper type Research paper Introduction Major trends, such as increased competition, aging populations, early retirement, digitalization, and various crises challenge societies to constantly change. In the evolving landscape of the workplace, several changes have become evident. Now and in the future, these changes include a shift to more knowledge-intensive work, increasing demands for problem-solving and creative tasks that can be mentally taxing, and a rise in cognitive load (World Economic Forum, 2020). Effective management in this context involves making the values associated with these changes apparent. When employees perceive new practices or job roles as aligning with their personal values, they are more likely to embrace and commit to these changes (Neves and Caetano, 2009). Furthermore, beyond the value perspective, the engagement and motivation of employees, facilitated through their active involvement in the change process, are now recognized as crucial elements for successful change implementation (e.g. Burnes and Jackson, 2011). In this evolving work environment, the central focus is on experiencing work as meaningful and valuable (Martela and Steger, 2016). Work is not solely viewed as a means to earn a paycheck; instead, it is increasingly seen as a Journal of Advances in Management Research © Soila Lemmetty and Elina Riivari. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0972-7981.htm Received 28 September 2023 Revised 18 March 2024 Accepted 5 September 2024 Journal of Advances in Management Research Emerald Publishing Limited 0972-7981 DOI 10.1108/JAMR-09-2023-0281 way to contribute value and discover personal meaning (e.g. Lysova et al., 2023). The meaningfulness of work, characterized by the sense that work serves a higher purpose, is increasingly recognized as a critical factor in organizational outcomes (Zeglat and Janbeik, 2019). This sense of meaningfulness contributes to individual growth, reinforces self-belief, and fosters a sense of belonging and well-being. In organizational psychology, meaningfulness is deeply rooted in subjective experiences (Steger et al., 2012). Crucial to meaningfulness research is the exploration of why work is considered worthwhile (see Lepisto and Pratt, 2017). Researchers have highlighted that meaningfulness is one of the most significant themes in organizational research within the ever-changing world of work (Bailey et al., 2019a;Podolny et al., 2005). Meaningful work studies usually concentrate on the job rather than the worker. Scholars advocating a “worker-centric perspective” acknowledge employees’ active role in shaping their sense of meaningfulness (De Boeck et al., 2019). Instead of being inherent to the job, meaningful work is viewed as something actively crafted by the employee (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2009;Pratt and Ashforth, 2003). Doing meaningful work is not only important for individual employees, but it is linked to the policies and practices of the work community and thus to organizations and their management (Lysova et al., 2019). Whether employees perceive their work as meaningful is also important for the management, motivation, and creativity at work (Bailey and Madden, 2016;Lysova et al., 2022;Riivari et al., 2020). In addition, a sense of meaningfulness has been found to be essential for individuals’ sense of well-being at work (Arnold et al., 2007;Soane et al., 2013). From a management perspective, meaningfulness has typically been examined based on different leadership styles. For example, transformational leadership (Chen et al., 2018;Ghadi et al., 2013;Pradhan and Pradhan, 2016), relational leadership with a strong leader-employee relationship (Tummers and, Knies, 2013), and support from a supervisor (Gloria and Steinhardt, 2016) have been found important to the perceived meaningfulness of work. However, the research on meaningfulness and its management has focused mainly on the theoretical development of the concept and the modeling of the phenomenon rather than on individual experience and empirical analysis (see, Lips-Wiersma et al., 2018;Steger et al., 2012). Weaknesses have generally been observed in the study of meaningfulness, starting from the fragmented and incomplete definition of the concept (Bailey et al., 2019b) and the methodological one-sidedness: existing research emphasizes quantitative methods even if it would be possible to get to the role of experientiality and cultural context in more detail specifically by means of qualitative research (Barreto et al., 2023). Researchers have called for the need to examine meaningful work through the experiences of people at work, across different industries, in different contexts and to study its temporal nature (e.g. Bailey et al., 2019b;Lysova et al., 2023). The study of meaningfulness in time and context is also central because people constantly renegotiate what they consider worthwhile at work and how unfavorable situations are transformed into meaningful ones (Barrett and Dailey, 2018; Florian et al., 2019;Lysova et al., 2023;Mitra and Buzzanell, 2017). In this study, based on the qualitative methodology, we examine managers’ perceptions of meaningful work, focusing on managers’ talk about meaningful work and its promotion in the future. Our research is based on the idea of meaningfulness as an individual experience, to which several management challenges are attached. In the theoretical part, we present this approach as well as previous research on the management of meaningfulness, the challenge related to the management of an experiential phenomenon, and the reasons why the study of managers’ perceptions is an important starting point for understanding meaningfulness and, on the one hand, for the development of practices that support it. We describe the study’s participants, the empathy-based method we used in collecting the data, the implementation of the qualitative analysis, and the five findings outlined through the analysis. Finally, we summarize the results and discuss them in relation to previous literature, future research needs, and practical applicability. JAMR Future work – meaningful work? In recent years, organizational and management researchers have become increasingly interested in examining the meaningfulness of work (Blustein et al., 2023;Dobrow et al., 2023; Laaser and Karlsson, 2022). This is primarily due to changes in work and the future prospects of the working life, which present both new opportunities for the working-age population to gain benefits beyond economic gains and potential threats to individual wellbeing and capabilities. In general, future work has been defined as a forecast of how work, labor, workers, and workplaces will evolve in the coming years from the perspectives of various societal actors, influenced by technological, socio-economic, political, and demographic changes (Lynn et al., 2023). The discussion on the future of work is recognized by many authors as a contextual factor that could make it more complicated to understand. Lysova et al. (2023) categorize the future of work into four dimensions: (1) technological dimension, which encompasses the emergence of new forms of work (e.g. gig work, platform work, telework), digitalization, and innovation, (2) social and demographic dimension, that addresses issues affecting individual workers, such as burnout and worknonwork conflict, and emphasizes broader societal imperatives, including corporate social responsibility, and considers challenges faced by vulnerable workers, such as immigrants, minorities, and older workers, (3) economic dimension, which focuses on aspects like wage inequality, (un)employment, and job precarity, and (4) political or institutional dimension considering factors like industrial relations, trade unions, and the structure of the labor market. In organizational research, meaningful work has been studied from the perspectives of leadership, empowerment, job design, and identity construction, among others (Riivari et al., 2020).Research on work meaningfulness has grown dramatically in recent years, increasing steadily since the 1990s, while studies related to well-being at work, work ability, and job satisfaction have also been on the rise (e.g. Laine and Rinne, 2015). Researchers are quite unanimous in their view that the meaningfulness of work is not only about individual wellbeing at work but also about the functioning and outcomes of the organization more broadly (Riivari et al., 2020), as the well-being of individuals, groups, and employees in the organization is key to work productivity (Lysova et al., 2019;Lysova et al., 2022). However, there is currently little consensus in research on how meaningful work is defined: some researchers define meaningful work as purposeful work, the compatibility of an individual’s work and personal beliefs, or as a characteristic of certain professional groups (Bailey et al., 2019b). In this study, we approach meaningful work based on the to the view developed especially in the field of psychology where meaningfulness has been approached as an experiential phenomenon, defining it broadly as an internal experience of the value of work for oneself (e.g. Martela and Steger, 2016). The idea of meaningfulness as a subjective experience is broad and includes several dimensions (Duchon and Plowman, 2005;LipsWiersma, 2002;May et al., 2004;Steger et al., 2012). According to Barreto et al. (2023), the most comprehensive models offer an integrative framework that include elements of innerdirected experiences, such as inner self development or self-expression, and externally driven experiences, such as belonging and servicing others (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2009;Rosso et al., 2010). Martela and Steger (2016) describe that meaningfulness means three things to people: coherence, purpose, and significance. According to them, coherence means a sense of comprehensibility and one’s life making sense; purpose means a sense of core goals, aims, and direction in life; significance is about a sense of life’s inherent value and having a life worth living. The experience of the work’s value is the umbrella concept built from the three themes described above. Work, on the other hand, is a context in which these themes can be realized. Thus, the experience of meaningfulness is “a general assessment of work in terms of how valuable it is in itself and worth doing” (Martela and Pessi, 2018, p. 1). In the current study we see meaningful work as a construct, and the future of work serves as a research Journal of Advances in Management Research framework or context. In theory, this implies that they should be able to share information with each other and do so without redundancy (Lysova et al., 2023). Five perspectives have been identified as challenges to future meaningful work, both from a research and practice perspective, for which there is currently no unambiguous answer or understanding (Bailey et al., 2019a). The first perspective relates to the satisfaction of individuals’ personal needs and includes the threat of excesses, such as working too much and accepting poor working conditions, and thus experiencing negative emotions rather than a sense of meaningfulness. The second perspective relates to the subjective experience of meaningfulness and dependence on the “other.” Previous research has shown that meaningfulness at work is both individual and dependent on others, for example in the form of belonging (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2009). A third perspective relates to the subjective and objective nature of meaningfulness. In addition to the subjective assessment, the external, objective context that shapes and legitimizes the meaningfulness individuals experience is essential to the meaningfulness of work. The fourth perspective relates to the meaningfulness of work and agency. To what extent is meaningfulness defined and experienced by the individual, and to what extent can employees’ experience of meaningfulness be regulated or managed through, for example, job design, human resource management, organizational values and culture, and leadership? The fifth and final perspective relates to meaningfulness as an individual’s perception and evaluation of the value of work, as well as the linkage of meaningful work to the space, time, and material contexts. In this respect, how often and how intensively must meaningfulness be experienced to talk about meaningful work? (Bailey et al., 2019a) To address these perspectives, it is essential to further explore the experiences of meaningfulness and to make visible how meaningfulness is produced and managed in workplaces (Bailey et al., 2019a). Promoting meaningfulness at work: focusing on managers’ perceptions The experience of meaningfulness is personal and subjective, and many things influence its formation. Thus, it creates a challenge for management work in organizations. Previous research has tried to find factors that promote meaningfulness at work. In their review Tan et al. (2023) found three main factors supporting meaningful work: (1) job design and related factors, (2) perceived leadership styles and organizational support, (3) individual psychological traits. Lysova et al. (2019) report the results of a multilevel review on the factors that contribute to workers’ experiences of meaningful work and discuss how these factors are related to each other to enable the experience of meaningful work in ways that organizations can promote. Their review suggests that to enable individuals to move beyond satisfying their basic needs by constructing their own sense of meaningful work, organizations should build and maintain work environments characterized by (1) welldesigned, good-fitting, and quality jobs that provide opportunities to job craft, (2) facilitative leaders, cultures, policies and practices, and high-quality relationships, and (3) an access to decent work. From an individual need’s perspective, factors such as freedom, autonomy, and interaction (Martela and Riekki, 2018;Yeoman, 2014), the opportunity to fulfill oneself at work, and the experience of the benefits of one’s work for others (Martela and Stegers, 2016) have been described as factors that increase meaningfulness in working life. Recent studies have therefore focused on the factors that increase work meaningfulness, such as job design, interpersonal relationships, and organizational culture (Lips-Wiersma et al., 2018;Michaelson et al., 2014;Pratt and Ashforth, 2003). However, research on enhancing and enabling the experience of meaningfulness through organizational practices and management is still scarce (Bailey et al., 2019b;Lips-Wiersma et al., 2018). Approaching meaningfulness as an individual experience, it becomes a complex and challenging management task: the idea of good management of meaningfulness is based on the JAMR assumptions of what personnel perceive as meaningful. This assumption is probably based on what kind of experiences managers themselves find their work valuable and, on the other hand, on what kind of thoughts and views the personnel have brought to them, for example through feedback. Managers’ own experiences and perceptions strongly guide their actual actions in organizations (Trevi~ no et al., 2000). Thus, it could be expected that the awareness and way of understanding the phenomenon of meaningfulness at work mirrors the way in which its promotion is made possible. Thus, an examination of managers’ perceptions (Breuer et al., 2020) - that is, the content and approaches they bring up and use when talking about the meaningfulness – appears to be a key to understanding the reality in which managers live and to highlighting the roles and practices that managers believe promote meaningfulness at work. When managers talk about their ideas, fears, and scenarios for the future, they reflect on their own experiences, the past and present state of their organizations and the ideas that underpin them. Therefore, in the current study, by examining managers’ perceptions about the future, we can gain access to the imagination they believe will happen, but above all to the reality they have experienced. Thus, the aim of our research is to make visible the ways managers approach meaningful work and its promotion in their organizations when talking about future working life. The following research question was set for the study: What kind of perceptions managers bring up about meaningful work and its promotion in the future of their organizations? Data, methods and analyses The context of our research is knowledge work, wherein problem-solving and developmentoriented tasks are commonplace. We have chosen knowledge work as the specific context because it is typically continuously changing and is often quite autonomous (Collin et al., 2018;Lemmetty, 2020). Thus, knowledge work can be assumed to generate the experience of meaningfulness, but also to be intellectually demanding and emotionally taxing (World Economic Forum, 2020). In Finland, which is the societal context of our study, future working life has been described by change scenarios that include changes in ways of thinking and acting, technological change, demographic change, and climate change (Kokkinen et al., 2020). Future working life changes are also linked to aspects relating to the flexibility of working life and the changing understanding of working times and places. For example, in the future, remote working and hybrid working opportunities may facilitate the reconciliation of work and family life (Hilbrecht et al., 2013). This was seen, for instance, in the working life experienced in Finland in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when it is estimated that almost 60% of Finnish workers worked remotely. According to a research report by Blomqvist et al. (2020), remote workers feel more efficient when many of the factors that cause disruption and interruptions in the office are absent. Nonetheless, especially over extended periods of time, remote working is also perceived as exhausting and stressful. In addition, workers’ perceived energy and enthusiasm for their work tasks decreased during this period of stress (Blomqvist et al., 2020). Additionally, studies have found that attitudes towards remote working also depend on whether remote working is an individual’s choice or an external requirement (Beauregard et al., 2019). The study involved 13 adults enrolled in the Executive MBA program at a Finnish university, who were working in demanding managerial or executive positions. The study was conducted with students from one course who were at the same level in their Executive MBA studies and mostly held similar managerial positions. Therefore, the number of participants in the study was 13. Of the participants, 7 worked in the private sector and 6 in the public sector, representing a wide range of industries. Most participants (9) had a university degree, 2 had secondary education, and 2 had a postgraduate degree. Journal of Advances in Management Research The research was carried out using the empathy-based method (see Wallin et al., 2019). This method has been described as based on imagination and writing and is aimed at understanding the variations in human behavior in different contexts. Essential to this empirical method is narrativity, which enables contextual analysis and the generation of rich and varied data (Wallin et al., 2019). In a study using the empathy-based method, participants write stories based on a framing story (the so-called “orientation”) produced by the researcher. A framing story refers to an initial setting, such as a situation in which the participant has to live, that is created by the researcher. The participant then writes a story based on his or her experience, reflecting, for example, on what happened in the situation or afterward, or what factors led to the situation presented in the framing story (Wallin et al., 2019). Although in this study the participants were asked to live in a fictional, future situation, the starting point of the empathy method is the idea that the participant mirrors the situation through his or her own experience. Thus, the future scenarios produced are ultimately a reflection on what has already been experienced, and a placing of these in a new context - that of future work. Typically, there are at least two variations of the framing story, wherein the story changes a single, but relevant factor to the research question. Variation is essential; it distinguishes the empathy-based method from other qualitative research methods, as it produces a setting similar to experimental research that highlights the specific characteristics of the phenomenon (Wallin et al., 2019). Different variations of the framing story can be given to different participants to answer, or the same participants can be asked to answer both variations (Posti-Ahokas, 2013). The empathy-based method is well suited to exploring the future as it allows for imagination, although stories are typically formed from the participant’s own past experiences or present thoughts. Thus, this method can be used to elicit participants’ views, scenarios, beliefs, fears or hopes (Wallin et al., 2019). The data for this study consisted of 25 stories written in spring 2022 by managers working in a professional context, 13 of which were negative and 12 were positive stories of meaningfulness at work. We constructed one framing story for the study, from which we created two variations, described below. The participants in the study were given the choice of writing one or two stories. Prior to the data collection, the framing story and its variations were tested with a group of adult students, who wrote the corresponding stories as an activating lecture task. Based on this testing, we decided on the temporal placement of the framing story in the future. The framing story is set in 2035. The framework varied as to whether personnel experience of the meaningfulness at work is declining (framing story variation 1) or increasing (framing story variation 2): Framing story, variation 1. Let’s imagine that we are living in the year 2035. Finnish working life – both in public and private organizations – has become increasingly technologyand information-intensive. At the same time, experiences of your organization’s personnel about the meaningfulness of work are decreasing. Live this imagined situation and tell about it in more detail. Describe the reasons for the decrease in the personnel’s experiences of meaningfulness. Tell us also about your organization’s practices in this imaginary situation. Framing story, variation 2. Let’s imagine that we are living in the year 2035. Finnish working life – both in public and private organizations – has become increasingly technologyand information-intensive. At the same time, experiences of your organization’s personnel about the meaningfulness of work are increasing. Live this imagined situation and tell about it in more detail. Describe the reasons for the increase in the personnel’s experiences of meaningfulness. Tell us also about your organization’s practices in this imaginary situation. The story data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis (see Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). All the stories produced by the participants were compiled into files so that the stories based on frame story 1 were in one document and the stories based on frame story 2 were in a JAMR separate document. We first carefully read the material a few times and took notes during the reading process. After a preliminary review of the data, a more detailed analysis phase was initiated. The stories in frame 1 were analyzed by examining the descriptions of meaningfulness and the reasons for the decline in the experience of meaningfulness. The findings were tabulated by first highlighting the description of meaningfulness, the reasons for it, and the expressions related to organizational practices. The stories in frame 2 were then analyzed using the same logic. Finally, all the stories were cross-checked, looking for similarities and differences. At this stage, the tabulated descriptions, supported by the entire original story data, were revisited in search of similarities and differences between the stories written, based on the different variations. This led to the formation of five main categories (similarities). Findings In the stories written by the managers, they approached meaningfulness by highlighting the different contexts for meaningful work in the future and different kinds of management practices which determinate the meaningfulness. In the stories, the key contexts that managers referred to behind the experiences of meaningfulness were constantly evolving and deployable technologies, developing expertise and demands for it and changes in values in working life. In reflections on the future, managers described the increase and decrease in meaningfulness also related to different management practices: leader-centered and distant practice versus participatory and interactional practice. Next, we will describe these findings in more detail. Technology reshaping meaningfulness of work by blurring boundaries and granting freedom In managers’ future stories, technology was observed to reshape both the way work is performed and the dynamics of workplace communities. Key themes included hybrid work, remote work, online interaction, multi-location work, flexibility driven by technology, robotics, and the digitalization of information flows. These changes profoundly affect how people interacted within the workplace, with customers, and other stakeholders. The data highlighted evolving work modes, such as the prediction that “In 2035, knowledge-intensive organizations will commonly adopt multi-location work” [Future story, T10]. However, concerns arose about a potential loss of meaningfulness in work due to busyness, hectic schedules, and blurred work-life boundaries, especially in the context of online interactions and digital workplace practices: The lack of technology seems to me to be the main reason for what has happened [ ...] Our employees have functional devices at home and completely flexible working hours. However, we expect them to be reachable by phone full-time. We expect a very independent approach to work [ . . .] More employees have a skills gap with technology at home because there is no one nearby to help them. [ . . .] There is also a certain sense of loneliness and isolation that takes over when staff work remotely. [Future story, T5] The stories explored the underlying reasons for the mentioned decline in meaningfulness. One significant future concern was the potential rise in system inefficiencies and technical issues, which could exacerbate the problem. Additionally, the decentralization of information and increasing technological complexity were anticipated to increase workloads, demanding more specialized skills. On the flip side, there was a fear that technology might replace the work of experts, transforming jobs into more data management and analysis roles, which could become monotonous and unappealing. However, a major recurring theme in these narratives was the apprehension that technology and devices might substitute human interaction. This shift, where humans interact more with machines than with each other, Journal of Advances in Management Research would give rise to experiences of loneliness and isolation, eroding the sense of meaningfulness derived from a sense of belonging and community. The e-commerce focus and the decline in physical customer contact have contributed to the decline in well-being at work. Work is not perceived as meaningful as it used to be because of fewer genuine customer encounters. Artificial intelligence and robotics are replacing the work that used to be done with human resources [ ...] Today, the salesperson’s job is to monitor customer behavior and the customer process in an online store and only intervene in the experience if a chatbot encounters a problem. Sellers are frustrated that they cannot influence the buying process and that their job is merely to hand [the product] over to the customer. [Future story, T4] Constant technological change was also described as contributing, at worst, to the personal experience of inability and inadequacy, as it is demanding and burdensome to keep up with developments and adapt one’s own activities accordingly. The participants in the study described technology and the change it brings also as an opportunity in the future. In this case, the potential was seen as an increase in the sense of meaningfulness in the context of evolving technologies, that comes from work flexibility, increased freedom, and collectivity. From this perspective, in the future, meaningfulness was seen as being generated by the possibility to focus on meaningful and suitably demanding work tasks, with technology taking care of the routine work. Technology was also seen to reduce human error, thus saving staff time and resources. A significant proportion of routine work is done using AI, which allows experts to focus their time on developing activities and conducting experiments and pilots [ . . .]. The widespread adoption of AI and technological information tools that reduce human error has increased productivity [ . . .] The success of the practical implementation of multi-site work and the increased degree of freedom given to employees in planning and organizing their work has enabled tailor-made implementation solutions, which has improved job satisfaction and resilience. [Future story, T18] In the stories where technological change was viewed positively, there was strong emphasis on technology being a tool for the future, rather than an end. The prevailing hope was that organizations would purposefully, strategically, consistently, and timely employ technology to yield tangible benefits. It was believed that this approach could enhance meaningfulness at work. This increased meaningfulness was thought to arise from teams and communities adopting clear, functional, and collaborative technological practices, while also maintaining face-to-face interactions. The concept of multi-location work, which offered flexibility while fostering a sense of community, was considered meaningful. Clarity was identified as a crucial value that not only facilitated work in technology-driven environments but also improved the comprehension of current organizational issues. This emphasis on clarity extended to digital communication and information sharing within the organization. Demands for deep expertise and diversifying skills framing the meaningfulness of work The stories addressed the evolving demands for expertise in three main areas: deep specialization, data and analytics proficiency, and technology expertise. These narratives primarily revolved around the notion of an expanding and diversifying skill set requirement in both jobs and professional life in the future. Collaborative learning, learning integrated into daily routines, and ongoing education were recurring themes in these stories. The participants used frame stories to describe the factors produced by the change in expertise that decrease or increase the experience of meaningfulness at work. Knowledge-intensive work requires an increasingly deeper specialization, both in terms of content and in acquiring the software and technical skills needed to process and analyze information. [Future story, T6] JAMR one’s work, feeling in control, being treated as a human being, and being accepted. On the other hand, negative emotions are identified as risk factors for relevance, such as the lack of psychological safety, incompetence, unfairness, and the neglect of employees. In this study, the stories were produced according to two frame stories including the “negative scenario” and the “positive scenario.” However, the stories described that people could influence the direction in which change will take working life. Management practices were seen as having the potential to influence the consequences of change. The stories suggest that management practices related to employee engagement, such as proactive skills development, attention to individual needs at work, and personal career paths will enable meaningful work experiences in the future, for example through individualized and competent job design and proactive skills management. Among the management practices associated with work environments that promote well-being at work, the stories identified flexible ways of working, multi-location and multi-disciplinary working, and incentive and fair rewards as contributing to job meaningfulness. Our findings also suggest that management practices that support meaningfulness at work emphasize participation and open interaction, while remote management, lack of support, and leader-centeredness were seen as undermining meaningfulness in the future. In practice, emphatic role of managers, meaning putting themselves in the position of personnel and trying to see things from the perspective of others (Arghode et al., 2022) would be the starting point for managers in workplaces to develop practices that promote experiences of meaningfulness. The other starting point in supporting meaningfulness is to become aware of the manager’s own thoughts and their effects on the practices. Together, these starting points form a framework for the manager, through which they could understand meaningfulness and find the right means to promote it. As a practical contribution, this study reinforces the perspective that meaningful work can be influenced in organizations through leadership in three broad areas: action based on human values, purposeful utilization of technology, and awareness of the downsides of technologies, mitigating their effects. Additionally, it emphasizes supporting the development of employees’ skills by providing resources within the framework of growing learning requirements. In leadership education, highlighting the role of leaders in shaping employees’ experience of meaningfulness is crucial, given its significance for both well-being and, ultimately, productivity. The narrative and empathy-based approach (Wallin et al., 2019) used in the study produced some interesting, and sometimes paradoxical, findings on meaningfulness and its management. This approach provided a chance to understand the participants’ beliefs about the future, their own previous experiences, the ways they mirror those experiences with the future, and their assumptions about their personnel views. However, the study has some limitations as well: the qualitative research with a relatively small dataset, it is important to understand that the scientific contribution of the study is particularly focused on the detailed and in-depth description it provides of meaningful work in the context of future work. Nevertheless, it adds novelty through identifying which of the already known contextual trends of future work are particularly prominent in the discourse of the managers who participated in this study with a larger data set collected from different contexts, it would be possible to understand a wider range of change contexts. Due to the small size of the data set and the qualitative nature of the study, the results are not transferable and generalizable as such. However, by combining the results with existing and previous knowledge about the issue of work change (from the perspective of all three change contexts), it can be reliably concluded that the study strengthens the understanding of future change work trends and the positive and negative outlooks associated with them. Journal of Advances in Management Research References Abeliansky, A.L., Algur, E., Bloom, D.E. and Prettner, K. (2020), “The future of work: meeting the global challenges of demographic change and automation”, International Labour Review, Vol. 159 No. 3, pp. 285-306, doi: 10.1111/ilr.12168. Arghode, V., Lathan, A., Alagaraja, M., Rajaram, K. and McLean, G.N. (2022), “Empathic organizational culture and leadership: conceptualizing the framework”, European Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 46 Nos 1/2, pp. 239-256, doi: 10.1108/EJTD-092020-0139. Arnold, K., Turner, N., Barling, J., Kelloway, K.E. and McKee, M.C. (2007), “Transformational leadership and psychological well-being: the mediating role of meaningful work”, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 193-203, doi: 10.1037/1076-8998.12. 3.193. Bailey, C., Lips-Wiersma, M., Madden, A., Yeoman, R., Thompson, M. and Chalofsky, N. (2019a), “The five paradoxes of meaningful work: introduction to the special issue ‘meaningful work: prospects for the 21st century’”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 56 No. 3, pp. 481-499, doi: 10.1111/joms.12422. Bailey, C. and Madden, A. (2016), “What makes work meaningful — or meaningless”, MIT Sloan Management Review, available at: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/what-makes-workmeaningful-or-meaningless/ Bailey, C., Yeoman, R., Madden, A., Thompson, M. and Kerridge, G. (2019b), “A review of the empirical literature on meaningful work: progress and research agenda”, Human Resource Development Review, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 83-113, doi: 10.1177/1534484318804653. Barreto, G.S.D., Buzzanell, P.M. and Cipolla, C.M. (2023), “‘Brazilian white-collar employees’ discourses of meaningful work and calling”, Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 451-477, doi: 10.1177/08933189221121309. Barrett, A. and Dailey, S. (2018), “A new normal? Competing national cultural discourses and workers’ constructions of identity and meaningful work in Norway”, Communication Monographs, Vol. 85 No. 2, pp. 284-307, doi: 10.1080/03637751.2017.1372587. Beauregard, T.A., Basile, K.A. and Can� onico, E. (2019), “Telework: outcomes and facilitators for employees”, in Landers, R.N. (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Technology and Employee Behavior, Cambridge University Press, pp. 511-543. Blomqvist, K., Sivunen, A., Vartiainen, M., Olsson, T., Ropponen, A., Henttonen, K. and Van Zoonen, W. (2020), “Remote work in Finland during the Covid-19 pandemic: results of a longitudinal study”, available at: https://cocodigiresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/remote-work-infinland-during-the-covid-19-pandemic.pdf (accessed 4 February 2021). Blustein, D.L., Lysova, E.I. and Duffy, R.D. (2023), “Understanding decent work and meaningful work”, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 289-314, doi: 10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031921-024847. Breuer, W., Knetsch, A. and Salzmann, A.J. (2020), “What does it mean when managers talk about trust?”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 166 No. 3, pp. 473-488, doi: 10.1007/s10551-018-4072-2. Burnes, B. and Jackson, P. (2011), “Success and failure in organizational change: an exploration of the role of values”, Journal of Change Management, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 133-162, doi: 10.1080/ 14697017.2010.524655. Chen, S.J., Wang, M.J. and Lee, S.H. (2018), “Transformational leadership and voice behaviors: the mediating effect of employee perceived meaningful work”, Personnel Review, Vol. 47 No. 3, pp. 694-708, doi: 10.1108/pr-01-2017-0016. Collin, K., Herranen, S., Paloniemi, S., Auvinen, T., Riivari, E., Sintonen, R. and Lemmetty, S. (2018), “Leadership as an enabler of professional agency and creativity in information technology organizations”, International Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 222-232. JAMR De Boeck, G., Dries, N. and Tierens, H. (2019), “The experience of untapped potential: towards a subjective temporal understanding of work meaningfulness”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 56, pp. 529-557, doi: 10.1111/joms.12417. Dobrow, S., Weisman, H., Heller, D. and Tosti-Kharas, J. (2023), “Calling and the good life: a metaanalysis and theoretical extension”, Forthcoming in Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 68 No. 2, pp. 508-550, doi: 10.1177/00018392231159641. Duchon, D. and Plowman, D.A. (2005), “Nurturing the spirit at work: impact on work unit performance”, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 807-833, doi: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2005. 07.008. Florian, M., Costas, J. and K€ arreman, D. (2019), “Struggling with meaningfulness when context shifts: volunteer work in a German refugee shelter”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 56 No. 3, pp. 589-616, doi: 10.1111/joms.12410. Ghadi, M.Y., Fernando, M. and Caputi, P. (2013), “Transformational leadership and work engagement: the mediating effect of meaning in work”, The Leadership and Organization Development Journal, Vol. 34 No. 6, pp. 532-550. Gloria, C.T. and Steinhardt, M.A. (2016), “Relationships among positive emotions, coping, resilience and mental health”, Stress and Health, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 145-156, doi: 10.1002/smi.2589. Hilbrecht, M., Shaw, S.M., Johnson, L.C. and Andrey, J. (2013), “Remixing work, family and leisure: teleworkers’ experiences of everyday life”, New Technology, Work and Employment, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 130-144, doi: 10.1111/ntwe.12010. Hsieh, H.F. and Shannon, S.E. (2005), “Three approaches to qualitative content analysis”, Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 15 No. 9, pp. 1277-1288, doi: 10.1177/1049732305276687. Kokkinen, L., Ala-Laurinaho, A., Alasoini, T., Varje, P., V€ a€ an€ anen, A. and Toppinen-Tanner, S. (2020), “Ty€ oel€ am€ ass€ a vaikuttaa nelj€ a muutosvoimaa. [Four drivers of change in working life]”, in Kokkinen, L. (Ed.), Hyvinvointia ty€ ost€ a 2030-luvulla: Skenaarioita Suomalaisen Ty€ oel€ am€ an Kehityksest€ a [Well-Being at Work in the 2030s: Scenarios for the Development of Finnish Working Life], Ty€ oterveyslaitos, Helsinki, pp. 6-9. Laaser, K. and Karlsson, J.C. (2022), “Towards a sociology of meaningful work”, Work, Employment and Society, Vol. 36 No. 5, pp. 798-815, doi: 10.1177/09500170211055998. Laine, P. and Rinne, R. (2015), “Developing wellbeing at work: emerging dilemmas”, International Journal of Wellbeing, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 91-108, doi: 10.5502/ijw.v5i2.6. Lemmetty, S. (2020), “‘Self-learning is present every day - in fact, it’s my job’, self-directed workplace learning in technology-based work”, Doctoral dissertation, University of Jyv€ askyl€ a, Jyv€ askyl€ a, available at: https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/71221 Lepisto, D.A. and Pratt, M.G. (2017), “Meaningful work as realization and justification: toward a dual conceptualization”, Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 99-121, doi: 10.1177/ 2041386616630039. Lips-Wiersma, M. and Morris, L. (2009), “Discriminating between ‘meaningful work’ and the ‘management of meaning’”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 88 No. 3, pp. 491-511, doi: 10.1007/ s10551-009-0118-9. Lips-Wiersma, M., Haar, J. and Wright, S. (2018), “The effect of fairness, responsible leadership and worthy work on multiple dimensions of meaningful work”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 161 No. 1, pp. 35-5, doi: 10.1007/s10551-018-3967-2. Lips-Wiersma, M. (2002), “The influence of spiritual ‘meaning-making’ on career behavior”, The Journal of Management Development, Vol. 21 No. 7, pp. 497-520, doi: 10.1108/ 02621710210434638. Lynn, T., Rosati, P., Conway, E. and van der Werff, L. (2023), “Introducing the future of work: key trends, concepts, technologies and avenues for future research”, in Lynn, T., Rosati, P., Conway, E. and van der Werff, L. (Eds), The Future of Work, Palgrave Studies in Digital Business and Enabling Technologies, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-31494-0_1. Journal of Advances in Management Research Lysova, E.I., Allan, B.A., Dik, B.J., Duffy, R.D. and Steger, M.F. (2019), “Fostering meaningful work in organizations: a multi-level review and integration”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 110 No. Part B, pp. 374-389, doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2018.07.004. Lysova, E.I., Fletcher, L. and El Baroudi, S. (2022), “What enables us to better experience our work as meaningful? The importance of awareness and the social context”, Human Relations, Vol. 76 No. 8, pp. 1226-1255, early online doi: 10.1177/00187267221094. Lysova, E.I., Tosti-Kharas, J., Michaelson, C., Fletcher, L., Bailey, C. and McGhee, P. (2023), “Ethics and the future of meaningful work: introduction to the special issue”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 185 No. 4, pp. 717-723, doi: 10.1007/s10551-023-05345-9. Martela, F. and Pessi, A.B. (2018), “Significant work is about self-realization and broader purpose: defining key dimensions of meaningful work”, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 9 No. 363, pp. 1-15, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00363. Martela, F. and Riekki, T.J.J. (2018), “Autonomy, competence, relatedness and beneficence: a multicultural comparison of the four pathways to meaningful work”, Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 9, pp. 1-14, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01157. Martela, F. and Steger, M.F. (2016), “The meaning of meaning in life: coherence, purpose and significance as the three facets of meaning”, The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 11 No. 5, pp. 531-545, doi: 10.1080/17439760.2015.1137623. May, D.R., Gilson, R.L. and Harter, L.M. (2004), “The psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety and availability and the engagement of the human spirit at work”, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 77 No. 1, pp. 11-37, doi: 10.1348/ 096317904322915892. Michaelson, C., Pratt, M.G., Grant, A.M. and Dunn, C.P. (2014), “Meaningful work: connecting business ethics and organization studies”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 121 No. 1, pp. 77-90, doi: 10.1007/s10551-013-1675-5. Mitra, R. and Buzzanell, P.M. (2017), “Communicative tensions of meaningful work: the case of sustainability practitioners”, Human Relations, Vol. 70 No. 5, pp. 594-616, doi: 10.1177/ 0018726716663288. Neves, P. and Caetano, A. (2009), “Commitment to change: contributions to trust in the supervisor and work outcomes”, Group and Organization Management, Vol. 34 No. 6, pp. 623-644, doi: 10.1177/ 1059601109350980. Podolny, J.M., Khurana, R. and Hill-Popper, M. (2005), “Revisiting the meaning of leadership”, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 26, pp. 1-36, doi: 10.1016/s0191-3085(04)26001-4. Posti-Ahokas, H. (2013), “Empathy-based stories capturing the voice of female secondary school students in Tanzania”, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Vol. 26 No. 10, pp. 1277-1292, doi: 10.1080/09518398.2012.731533. Pradhan, S. and Pradhan, R.K. (2016), “Transformational leadership and job outcomes: the mediating role of meaningful work”, Global Business Review, Vol. 17 No. 3_suppl, pp. 173S-185S, doi: 10. 1177/0972150916631211. Pratt, M.G. and Ashfort, B.E. (2003), “Fostering meaningfulness in working and at work”, in Cameron, K., Dutton, J.E. and Quinn, R.E. (Eds), Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a New Discipline, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, pp. 308-327. Riivari, E., Malin, V., J€ a€ askel€ a, P. and Lukkari, T. (2020), “University as a workplace: searching for meaningful work”, Teaching in Higher Education, Vol. 25, pp. 286-304, doi: 10.1080/13562517. 2018.1563061. Rosso, B.D., Dekas, K.H. and Wrzesniewski, A. (2010), “On the meaning of work: a theoretical integration and review”, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 30, pp. 91-127, doi: 10.1016/j. riob.2010.09.001. JAMR Soane, E., Shantz, A., Alfes, K., Truss, C., Rees, C. and Gatenby, M. (2013), “The association of meaningfulness, well-being, and engagement with absenteeism: a moderated mediation model”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 52 No. 3, pp. 441-456, doi: 10.1002/hrm.21534. Steger, M.F., Dik, B.J. and Duffy, R.D. (2012), “Measuring meaningful work: the work and meaning inventory (WAMI)”, Journal of Career Assessment, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 322-337, doi: 10.1177/ 1069072711436160. Tan, K.-L., Sim, A.K.S., Yap, S. S.-N., Vithayaporn, S. and Rachmawati, A.W. (2023), “A systematic review of meaningful work unifying 20 years of theoretical and substantive contributions (2000-2020)”, Journal of Advances in Management Research, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 462-512, doi: 10. 1108/JAMR-11-2022-0225. Trevi~ no, L.K., Hartman, L.P. and Brown, M. (2000), “Moral person and moral manager: how executives develop a reputation for ethical leadership”, California Management Review, Vol. 42 No. 4, pp. 128-142, doi: 10.2307/41166057. Tummers, L.G. and Knies, E. (2013), “Leadership and meaningful work in the public sector”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 73 No. 6, pp. 859-868, doi: 10.1111/puar.12138. Wallin, A., Koro-Ljungberg, M. and Eskola, J. (2019), “The method of empathy-based stories”, International Journal of Research and Method in Education, Vol. 42 No. 5, pp. 525-535, doi: 10. 1080/1743727X.2018.1533937. World Economic Forum (2020), “The future of jobs report 2020”, available at: https://www.weforum. org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020/ (accessed 28 September 2023). Yeoman, R. (2014), “Conceptualising meaningful work as a fundamental human need”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 125 No. 2, pp. 235-251, doi: 10.1007/s10551-013-1894-9. Zeglat, D. and Janbeik, S. (2019), “Meaningful work and organizational outcomes: the mediating role of individual work performance”, Management Research Review, Vol. 42 No. 7, pp. 859-878, doi: 10.1108/MRR-05-20. Further reading Fay, D., Strauss, K., Schwake, C. and Urbach, T. (2023), “Creating meaning by taking initiative: proactive work behavior fosters work meaningfulness”, Applied Psychology, Vol. 72 No. 2, pp. 506-534, doi: 10.1111/apps.12385. Vogel, R.M., Rodell, J.B. and Sabey, T.B. (2020), “Meaningfulness misfit: consequences of daily meaningful work needs–supplies incongruence for daily engagement”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 105 No. 7, pp. 760-770, doi: 10.1037/apl0000464. Corresponding author Soila Lemmetty can be contacted at: [email protected] For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm Or contact us for further details: [email protected] Journal of Advances in Management Research